I'm the publisher of Forbes magazine, where I write a biweekly column called Innovation Rules. I'm also a regular panelist on cable news' popular business show, Forbes on FOX (with an average viewership of 1.2 million households per show in 2012), and frequent guest analyst on CNBC's The Kudlow Report. My 2004 book, Life 2.0, was a Wall Street Journal business bestseller. I'm also an entrepreneur, an active angel investor, and sit on three outside boards. For co-founding Silicon Valley's largest public affairs organization, the 6,500-member Churchill Club, I'm a past Northern California winner of Ernst & Young's prestigious "Entrepreneur of the Year Award." I earned a B.A. from Stanford University. I lecture up to 50 to 60 times a year on the innovation economy.

With such a title, and from such a friendly organ, at first I thought Jodi Kantor’s piece would be a collection of Obama’s greatest political wins: His rapid rise in Illinois, his win over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, the passage of health care, and so on.

But the NYT piece is not about any of that. Rather, it is a deep look into the two outstanding flaws in Obama’s executive leadership:

1. How he vastly overrates his capabilities:

But even those loyal to Mr. Obama say that his quest for excellence can bleed into cockiness and that he tends to overestimate his capabilities. The cloistered nature of the White House amplifies those tendencies, said Matthew Dowd, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, adding that the same thing happened to his former boss. “There’s a reinforcing quality,” he said, a tendency for presidents to think, I’m the best at this.

2. How he spends extraordinary amounts of time and energy to compete in — trivialities.

For someone dealing with the world’s weightiest matters, Mr. Obama spends surprising energy perfecting even less consequential pursuits. He has played golf 104 times since becoming president, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who monitors his outings, and he asks superior players for tips that have helped lower his scores. He decompresses with card games on Air Force One, but players who do not concentrate risk a reprimand (“You’re not playing, you’re just gambling,” he once told Arun Chaudhary, his former videographer).

His idea of birthday relaxation is competing in an Olympic-style athletic tournament with friends, keeping close score. The 2009 version ended with a bowling event. Guess who won, despite his history of embarrassingly low scores? The president, it turned out, had been practicing in the White House alley.

Kantor’s piece is full of examples of Obama’s odd need to dominate his peers in everything from bowling, cards, golf, basketball, and golf (104 times in his presidency). Bear in mind, Obama doesn’t just robustly compete. The leader of the free world spends many hours practicing these trivial pursuits behind the scenes. Combine this weirdly wasted time with a consistent overestimation of his capabilities, and the result is, according to NYT’s Kantor:

He may not always be as good at everything as he thinks, including politics. While Mr. Obama has given himself high grades for his tenure in the White House — including a “solid B-plus” for his first year — many voters don’t agree, citing everything from his handling of the economy to his unfulfilled pledge that he would be able to unite Washington to his claim that he would achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Those were not the only times Mr. Obama may have overestimated himself: he has also had a habit of warning new hires that he would be able to do their jobs better than they could.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Though he never ran a large organization before becoming president, he initially dismissed internal concerns about management and ended up with a factionalized White House and a fuzzier decision-making process than many top aides wanted.

Kantor’s portrait of Obama is stunning. It paints a picture of a CEO who is unfocused and lost.

Imagine, for a minute, that you are on the board of directors of a company. You have a CEO who is not meeting his numbers and who is suffering a declining popularity with his customers. You want to help this CEO recover, but then you learn he doesn’t want your help. He is smarter than you and eager to tell you this. Confidence or misplaced arrogance? You’re not sure at first. If the company was performing well, you’d ignore it. But the company is performing poorly, so you can’t.

With some digging, you learn, to your horror, that the troubled CEO spends a lot of time on — what the hell? — bowling? Golf? Three point shots? While the company is going south?

What do you do? You fire that CEO. Clint Eastwood was right. You let the guy go.

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What you call a boss that’s out golfing or on vacation or fundraising or campaigning all of the time, shirking his job, while you do all the work, he himself has proposed nothing. Democrats in Congess wrote the Stimulus bill that failed, they wrote and passed the unpopular government takeover of healthcare. No one has bothered to pass a budget in over three years except the Republicans in the House. Meanwhile, Obama makes speeches, that’s pretty much all he does. His only plan for the next term different from the first term is to raise taxes on the people “who built that.” In the real world we are all judged on our performance everyday, we don’t get the job done, you get your walking papers. Let’s look at some of the Obama metrics, 8.3% unemployment, gas prices double, food costs rising, food stamps doubled proverty highest ever, 5.3 Trillion added to the national debt. the list could go on and on. Obama did inherit a bad economy, many presidents do, but they should be judged on what they make of the situation and this President has failed the American people.

I think the inclination is made within the title of the article ‘Competitor in Chief’. CEO’s are goal orientated but with peripheral matters always accounted for and on the mind. The article is suggesting that a good CEO would not see these decisions, or role as it were, as a game.

Obama has supposedly been too focused on winning and being right, rather than admitting wrongs or seeking advise. A paragraph from the NY Times stated, ‘Mr. Obama’s obsession with virtuosity and proving himself the best are remarkable, those close to him say. (Critics call it arrogance.)’ It is this ‘arrogance’ that is the catalyst for all of this controversy.

We all know the NY Times is in Obama’s pocket so we don’t expect it to call Obama a lousy CEO. However, the conclusions to be drawn from the article are inescapable: The nation is going down the tube and Obama is spending his time golfing, bowling, fund raising and campaigning. Time for him to go.

@ Vickery Eckhoff You should read and understand the heading before trying to prove it wrong. I will explain the heading for you. It says “The New York times proves Clint Eastwood is right, Obama is a lousy CEO” All this means is; using information from the NY Times article (IE Golfing 104 times instead of going to job council meetings) proves Clint Eastwood is right there is an empty chair in the White House. It doesn’t go on to state the writer (NY Times) accuses Obama of being a lousy CEO. Reading articles are great but comprehension is necessary Please try to be prepared next time before trying to bait people thanks!

Where does this writer say the NYT article says that Obama is a lousy CEO? The title says “NYT proves Clint Eastwood Correct — Obama is a lousy CEO” that is a lot different than “NYT says Client Eastwood — Obama is a lousy CEO”. He is saying the facts cited in the NYT article PROVE Obama is a lousy CEO not that they overtly stated the same conclusion.

Vickery thank you! You have in one simple question highlighted the KEY difference between liberal and conservatives. You see, conservatives use logic to draw a connection and therefore can think very broadly…this is why we both admit when there is a problem, and also can think about new ideas to most problems. Liberals, on the other hand, who are so used to a cradle to grave hand-holding trip through life, whose parents constantly focus on their self esteem rather than their academic achievements, need to be TOLD exactly what to think, when, how, where and why. You are doing it now. Anybody with an average IQ can understand EXACTLY what the thrust of the article is…but unless you have a Public Sector Union teacher standing there explaining why 1 plus 1 truly equals 2, you libs debate if 1 plus 1 is sexist because some families have two mommies and one daddy. This is why you LOVE Obama…he soothes many liberals who have failed in life by telling them its ok to blame others, whereas conservatives teach each other that if we fail, its often something we did or did not do, and so we need to get up, do better and try again. So thank you Vickery…in one simple question you have helped the readers understand why libs are desperate to have a parent in the WH, whereas conservatives want a leader. Sadly, with so many failed baby-boomer liberals now looking at a President who is their age, not older, they realize in his success that most aspects of their lives have been failures…and so they seek to now bring down those of us who have actually succeed in life, a success earned not by asking the Government for help, but by giving up the college spring break to work that week, not by taking transgender poetry survey courses to “understand life” but by taking an extra poli-sci course, not by expecting someone to pay our loans when we overextend, but by living within our means. Libs are simply children in adult bodies who need a Mr. and Mrs. President rather than a strong leader. You need others to be weak so you can feel good, whereas we want you to be strong so you can succeed. It’s that simple. Be well.